The roads were quiet, but he veered off onto even quieter ones. Rural, remote and out of sight of any kind of main highway.
“Who’s on the way?” I asked him when his driving slowed down a little.
“It’s my own family coming for me this time,” he said, “I’m now my father’s enemy, not his son.”
I felt awful for him.
“Sorry,” rolled off my tongue without a thought.
He looked right at me.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. I have no regrets and you have nothing to take accountability for.”
“Still,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I had no idea where we were headed until signs for the city showed up and told me directly. I had no idea what the plan was, or where we were going to end up, not until Lucian pulled another surprise out for me.
“I’m trusting your friend Jemma isn’t back from her world-saving mission yet?”
I spun in my seat to face him, taken aback he even remembered her name. Jemma. My friend who gave me her apartment keys whenever she was on a charity project or a protest drive somewhere. The friend whose apartment Lucian had followed me to downtown and threatened to kill me in her kitchen. Only he hadn’t. He’d walked away and left me bleeding from my own self-harm on her living room carpet.
“Yeah, she’ll be away for weeks,” I said.
“Good. I have a set of keys to her apartment that I had made up, we’ll wait it out there overnight.”
It was yet another shocker for me.
“You have keys to her apartment?”
He smirked, even through his tension. “Yes. I have keys to her apartment. I was planning on using it to finish you off in. Trenton Alto made them for me.”
I smirked back. “Life works out pretty damn weirdly sometimes, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. “It sure does.”
Gaol Street was barely more than a dive, and definitely nowhere that people would ever come looking for Lucian Morelli. He ditched the car a few blocks away in an underground parking lot, as far into the shadows as he could, and then he took the suitcases from the trunk. He couldn’t carry all of them, so I took hold of the cash. It felt so bizarre to be carrying that much money in my hands. Bizarre and painful, even though I was lucky enough that the wound from the blade didn’t seem to be nearly as bad as I was fearing.
Painful but manageable. Torment, not quite torture.
Together we made our way over to Jemma’s place. I was teetering with every step, heels feeling crazy. I must have looked absurd, dressed in a long shirt and one of Lucian’s jackets with stilettos on my feet.
Sure enough, Lucian had keys to Jemma’s place. He looked up and down the street before he let us into the apartment block, but it seemed there was nobody around.
I was so used to being in this place that the hallway actually felt relaxing as we made our way along to apartment seven. I took the key from Lucian and let us inside, and there we were, back at one of the very first places we first truly crossed paths.
I still remembered him being there, pinning me to the kitchen countertop.
Holy hell, how I wanted him to do it again. Even though I had a slice to my chest, I still wanted Lucian to take me.
We dropped the cases down in the living room, then I headed on into the kitchen. I took two mugs out, staring at him afresh all over again as he stepped on into the hallway. It didn’t matter how many times I looked at the man I adored, he still took my breath away.
He looked bigger than ever as he stood looking at Jemma’s whale tapestry up on the wall. His hair looked darker and slicker, and his eyes looked fiercer, and his stance was more powerful than I’d ever known.
Yes. He was the man I was destined to be with. I could feel it with every breath, right into my heart. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on us. We were as soul bound as it would ever be possible to be.
Lucian gestured to the bedroom.
“This may solve another issue at least,” he said. “You might leave this place with some clothes that actually fit you.”
He was right on that. Jemma was almost exactly the same size as me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can pack a suitcase of her stuff. Or try to, at least.”
Making us a coffee gave me tingles, reminding me so much of the first time in that space together. He stepped up close to take his mug and I couldn’t fight the waves of shivers rushing through me. Only this time they were good shivers. This time they were shivers because I was so desperate for his touch.